It occurs to me that our youngest generation will not have, as a natural part of their acquired cultural literacy, a visceral understanding of the meaning of “clown car.” The Ringling Brothers no longer tour America with their three-ring circus, entertaining families nationwide with trained animals, acrobats, and clowns. What used to be considered a must-see for one’s children fell by the wayside in 2017, due to growing concern about the mistreatment of circus animals. As an adult, I agree that I would not want to contribute to a business that profits from the mistreatment of animals, but, boy, did I love the circus when I was a kid.
The newest generation will not have the experience of sitting beneath the big top, holding a bag of warm peanuts, enjoying the spectacle of 20 clowns trying to squeeze themselves into a very small car; instead, they will have the experience, as adults, of spending $500 for a ticket to Cirque du Soleil.
But perhaps not all is lost for American children. They may, in fact, have more of an opportunity to see the circus than I did. Ringling Brothers is no more, but today’s parents need only seat their children in front of the television and turn on C-SPAN, the congressional TV network, where cameras capture the behavior of our elected representatives all day, every day.
There, today’s youth will see clowns aplenty. Although I have not yet seen any of them trying to physically squeeze into a micro-car (I would love to see that happen, though), our Freedom Caucus legislators stampede all over each other, each and every day, to hitch a metaphoric ride in the MAGA-mobile. They all pile in and pile on, jockeying for a position nearest their driver and Clown Prince, Donald McDonald.
As the “McDonald” tours with his traveling freak show all over the United States, his underlings do a stand-alone act at their home base in Washington, D.C.
The side shows are breathtaking: high-wire impeachment investigations because the “McDonald” thinks they are hilarious; withholding funding for child welfare and the environment because, hey, what could be funnier than that, unless it’s withholding military assistance for Ukraine; doing back-flips to substantiate conspiracy theories about the Biden family, with incontrovertible “evidence” provided to them by Russian double-agents; firing their leadership out of a large canon whenever they veer too far from the established script; juggling national priorities; setting fire to political norms, then pretending to extinguish those fires with buckets of confetti.
What a hoot!
At present, they have not yet achieved their dream of a permanent three-ring circus in our nation’s capital. So far, two rings are all they can manage. The third ring has not yet been completed, so they will have to wait until this coming November to finish the project and repurpose the White House for maximum mayhem. And just between us, word on the street is that they are bringing back an elephant.
As your children watch the Greatest Show on Earth from their ringside seats on the family room sofa, you may want to remind them that the clowns on C-SPAN, who might sometimes seem mean, or even scary, are really just a bunch of not-very-bright grown-ups who found a way to get paid for acting like fools.
